HUDU’s updated rapid HIA tool is designed to ensure new developments make a positive contribution to healthy urban development.
Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) are an important tool for assessing the potential health impacts of both policies and plans as well as more specific proposals and individual developments.
Their principal value is in the process of identifying potential positive and negative health impacts and working through how the positive benefits can be enhanced, and the negative impacts eliminated or at least mitigated.
HUDU’s new Rapid Health Impact Assessment tool updates the earlier Watch Out for Health tool published in 2009, including referencing the latest London Plan policies adopted in July 2011. Watch Out for Health was one of a suite of publications which, together, were designed to more closely integrate health and planning at both the policy level (eg in Local Development Framework Core Strategies) and at the delivery end of planning – ie the consideration of specific development proposals and planning applications.
Policy 3.2 of the London Plan Improving Health and Addressing Health Inequalities expressly supports the use of Health Impact Assessments (HIA) to consider the impacts of major development proposals on the health and wellbeing of communities (Policy 3.2).